ALBANY — The conviction this week of former SUNY Polytechnic Institute President Alain Kaloyeros in a bid-rigging case that centered on one of the state's signature economic programs delivered another blow to Gov. Andrew Cuomo in an election year punctuated by corruption trials.

The guilty verdict for Kaloyeros and three developers marked the second time this year that associates of Cuomo's have been convicted on federal corruption charges in cases that had campaign contributions to the governor tethered to the scandal.

The outcomes have sparked calls for increased scrutiny of Cuomo's economic development initiatives. They also have left the two-term governor trying to distance himself from the corruption and weathering searing questions about his close ties to many of those charged, as well as the state's arguable lack of meaningful government reforms.

The governor on Friday, in response to questions about the Kaloyeros' trial, insisted that his administration has taken steps to approve oversight of state contracting and said that he would seek advice from federal prosectors about the large campaign contributions he received in connection with the cases.

"We segregated the money that they gave when we first heard about it,” Cuomo said, referring to the Kaloyeros' trial. "I don’t know what I could have done differently to prevent the situation. More, it’s what do you do when you find the situation. ... We have more protections in place than any administration in history. More checks and balances.”

Facing a September Democratic state primary, Cuomo has consistently deflected responsibility for the scheme. He was not directly implicated in the Kaloyeros case, which centered on a massive state university project known as the Buffalo Billion. He also was not directly tied to the earlier trial that ended in March with the conviction of his former top aide and longtime friend, Joseph Percoco, on corruption charges that included Percoco's receipt of $300,000 in bribes.

Broken promises of reform

In 2010, Cuomo ran for governor on a promise to clean up Albany and restore the public's trust in state government.

Since he took office, scandals and corruption trials have toppled the leaders of the Assembly and Senate, as well as rank-and-file lawmakers. Yet in each case, the exposure of criminal misconduct failed to result in significant measures to clean up the Capitol, government reformers say.

When news of the Buffalo Billion bid-rigging scheme first broke, implicating Kaloyeros and Percoco, the governor outlined immediate unilateral steps he would take to curb pay-to-play practices in the awarding of state contracts. Among the reforms, he vowed to instruct his campaign to stop accepting donations from companies that were involved in an open state bidding process. But as the Times Union recently reported, he never followed through on those commitments.

Cuomo's aides have consistently blamed the Legislature for the governor's failure to act, while Cuomo has simultaneously stood in the way of the Assembly passing bills— approved almost unanimously by the Senate — that would restore contracting oversight power to the state comptroller's office. The measures also would make key information about Cuomo's economic development projects easily accessible through an online "database of deals."

"I think its pretty obvious that any kind of attempts at reform have been defeated by Cuomo," said Assemblyman Ray Walter, R-Amherst, an outspoken critic of Cuomo. "He has very clearly been putting the boot on any reforms coming out of the Assembly."

The rigged bids in the Buffalo Billion case escaped scrutiny, in part, because the money was funneled through a pair of SUNY-affiliated nonprofits that previously said they were not subject to the Freedom of Information Law. In 2011, Cuomo and the state Legislature eliminated Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's oversight over SUNY procurements to speed up the approval process. DiNapoli has called for his authority to be restored.

In his Friday press appearance, Cuomo told reporters that he was not responsible for the scandal, because he didn't hire Kaloyeros, who has held prominent roles in state government for more than two decades, eventually earning more than $1 million a year while being credited with turning Albany into a nanotechnology hub.

"The mechanism and the entity, those had all been set up and predated me," he said. " Can you stop people from doing stupid things? No. Can you stop people from doing venial things? No. Can you stop people from doing criminal things? No. But, you can have a system in place that says if you do something wrong we will be as aggressive as the law allows in prosecuting you."

Instead, Cuomo touts his overhaul of the SUNY board structure, his placement of all economic development programs under the supervision of the state's Empire State Development -- which is subject to comptroller's oversight -- and his appointment of an independent investigator to produce a report on the state procurement process.

Will voters care?

A large majority of voters in New York consistently agree that corruption in their state government is a problem, but it's not necessarily a top priority when it's time to vote.

Republican pollster John McLaughlin said the timing of a scandal can influence the political fallout.

Two years ago on Long Island, an incumbent state senator lost his seat when his father was indicted days before the election. McLaughlin noted that Cuomo's personal ratings dropped slightly in the immediate aftermath of the conviction of Percoco, although his numbers later rebounded.

The conviction of Kaloyeros, he said, could be a problem in November for Cuomo if his Democratic primary opponent, actress Cynthia Nixon, is able to keep the spotlight on the issue. He anticipated she would have better luck promoting the story than Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, the Republican nominee for governor.

"To the average person, if there is media coverage, they're going to say, 'clean it up,'" McLaughlin said.

The sentencing of Kaloyeros, which is scheduled for Oct. 11, could help prolong the story, experts say.

But McLaughlin was dismissive about the amount of coverage the corruption trials of Kaloyeros and Percoco received in New York City, where a vast majority of the state's Democratic primary voters are located. "In upstate, Cuomo is in big trouble because these corruption trials got press," he said.

Repeated polling by the Siena Research Institute found that at least 80 percent of New Yorkers believe state government corruption is a "somewhat serious" or "very serious" problem, and the number of convicted state officials has only grown since the last time this question was put to voters.

Heading into 2017, addressing "state government ethics reform" was the fifth most important issue for New Yorkers, according to a Siena poll from 2016. The issue fell to seventh when voters were asked about their second priority for the governor to address.

"People right now are very cynical about New York state government," McLaughlin said. "They think the corruption is rampant ... but they haven't figured out how to vote to protest it."

In the governor's 2014 re-election bid, he was able to hold the high ground on corruption, according to polling from Siena. Two polls from the summer of 2014 indicated more voters trusted him to clean up Albany than Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, his Republican opponent.

Two years later, only 23 percent of voters thought the governor was doing an "excellent" or "good" job addressing corruption, according to a Siena poll.

In some parts of the state, Kaloyeros and Louis P. Ciminelli — a Buffalo developer also snared in the corruption probe and convicted Thursday — are largely unknown. In cities like Buffalo and Albany, they are household names making newspaper headlines.

In Buffalo, especially, the trial was on the forefront of everyone's mind, said Walter.

"What the governor has done with Buffalo billion is set up this false hope for everyone," he said. "At the end of the day, what's going to be left is this specter of corruption, instead of the vital reforms we need in Western New York."

Reaction to news

Elected officials, candidates for office, and good-government advocates throughout the state weighed in on Thursday's convictions with calls for reforms and investigations into whether the governor had knowledge of the scheme.

Nixon held a press conference Friday calling for an independent ethics investigation of the governor's administration and released a highlight reel of Cuomo praising Kaloyeros.

"Yesterday, Alain Kaloyeros, the architect of the governor's signature economic development initiative, was convicted of steering hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts to major Cuomo donors," Nixon said in a statement. "For any other governor in America, this verdict would be earth-shattering. But in Andrew Cuomo's Albany, it was just a Thursday."

Molinaro similarly said that Cuomo should be held responsible for the Buffalo Billion scheme.

"While these men stood trial, make no question what was really found guilty was the reckless pay-to-play, incompetence of Andrew Cuomo's administration," Molinaro said. "He has empowered, emboldened and encouraged individuals to bend the rules, rig the system and defrauded taxpayers."

Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Group, called the Buffalo Billion scandal Albany's "Watergate moment," calling for the governor to immediately convene a special session to address the corruption.

"The governor 's failure to produce meaningful reforms, coupled with the Legislature's inability to come to an agreement on its own, highlight the failures of the state's elected leadership to grapple with unending scandals," he said. "Scandals that have ripped through the Legislature and toppled top aides to the governor. New Yorkers deserve better."

Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout, a Democratic candidate for attorney general who lost the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial primary to Cuomo, also seized on the news.

"These are not minor corruption cases," she said. "These are people at the very peak of power in government ... either facing trial or convicted of corruption. It has never been more clear that we have a crying need for an independent attorney general who is going to name the problem, investigate corruption in state government -- including in the admin -- and prosecute when necessary."

Next steps for Cuomo's former nano-czar

The work of the prosecutors and defense attorneys will continue past Thursday's guilty verdict from the jury, according to former U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian.

He said the defense will be reviewing the trial transcript in order to identify areas that are ripe for appeal and prosecutors will establish their position on the sentences they recommend, which could amount to years in prison.

It's possible, Hartunian said, that prosecutors will approach Kaloyeros and the other convicted co-conspirators before sentencing to pursue potential cooperation agreements that could significantly reduce their sentences.